


expert only at unspeakable things

by sixbeforelunch



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Episode Related, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-22
Updated: 2007-05-22
Packaged: 2017-10-23 23:06:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/256095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sixbeforelunch/pseuds/sixbeforelunch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'm not sure I know what to say. But I think the conversation would go a little easier with over-priced coffee." Sam and Daniel post-Need.</p>
            </blockquote>





	expert only at unspeakable things

Sam didn't look up when Daniel appeared at the door to her lab for the fourth time in as many hours. He stood, hands thrust deep into his pockets, shifting back and forth. Glancing at him out of the corner of her eye, Sam thought he looked like a kid called to the principal's office.

She wondered if this was going to be the time when he said whatever it was he kept coming around to say or if he was just going to make up another excuse and leave. There was a part of her that hoped it was the latter. There was a reason she hadn't exactly sought him out to talk. Even Colonel O'Neill had commented on the way she was avoiding him.

"I, um," Daniel said. "I have the translation from the wall on 222. You said you...needed that."

So, not the time when he came out and said what was on his mind.

Sam kept her eyes on the computer screen in front of her. "You can leave it on the bench. Thanks."

Daniel dropped the folder onto her work bench, but he didn't leave. He shifted again.

Sam finally raised her eyes to look at him. "Something else you needed?"

"Coffee," Daniel said. Sam smiled a little because it was normal and normal had been missing for weeks.

"Ah. Commissary just put out a fresh batch," Sam said, gesturing to the cup next to her. She looked back at the computer, but she couldn't concentrate on the numbers in front of her.

"Good coffee," Daniel said and Sam couldn't help smiling again. "There's a place that just opened up near my apartment. Did you want to go...get coffee?"

Sam looked up at him, her fingers frozen just above the keyboard. It sounded like an awkward invitation to a date, but it wasn't. It was an awkward invitation to have a conversation that neither one of them wanted to have.

"Are you allowed off of the base?" Sam asked, looking back at the computer. It was a mean thing to say, she knew that even as she said it. If Daniel wasn't allowed off of the base he wouldn't have suggested it. Asking was just a way of reminding him of why he might _not_ be allowed off of the base right now.

"Yeah. Doctor Frasier cleared me last night," Daniel said. He smiled sheepishly. "I'm normal again."

Sam thought she should say something joking here. _Again? You mean you were normal before?_ She didn't say it. Looking at the computer screen was pointless now, she wasn't even seeing it, but it was a way to avoid looking at Daniel.

Daniel stepped closer and then stopped, hesitating as if he was afraid of getting too close.

"Sam." She pulled her eyes away from the computer and forced herself to look at him. "I've been making the rounds. I've already apologized to the airman I attacked. And Janet and Teal'c and...Jack. Jack was a hard one. But I saved you for last because..." He smiled a little, sadly. "Well, because I'm not sure I know what to say. But I think the conversation would go a little easier with over-priced coffee."

He gave her another little smile and Sam sighed. "You're driving."

"No, actually you're driving," Daniel said. "I'm not cleared for that yet. But I'm paying."

Sam stood up and stretched, cramped muscles screaming in relief. "Oh, you bet you are," she said.

*

It took a while to get out of the mountain. They both had to get changed, Daniel made sure to check in with Janet and Colonel O'Neill to let them know where he was going, and then when they got to the first security check point, Daniel's name came up "Restricted Movement--Level One Threat" and the guard had to call down to General Hammond to get it cleared up. Daniel took the glitch in the paperwork well, considering they held him at gunpoint while the phone call was made.

When they finally stepped outside, it was early morning. The landscape was bathed in blue-grey light and the air was cool, but the clear sky suggested it would warm up later. Sam wrapped her arms around herself, glad to escape the shadow of the mountain for the parking lot that was already being warmed by the dawn sunlight.

The rode mostly in silence. Daniel didn't seem to know what to do with his hands. Usually when they rode in a car together, they talked. Daniel's hands would be moving in a flurry of gestures, sometimes even when they should have been on the wheel. Today, he kept fidgeting with his seatbelt, playing with the control for the window. Sam finally told him to find something on the radio just to give him something to do, but still he flipped restlessly through the stations.

Eventually, Sam pushed his hand away from the dial and tuned the radio to NPR, but by then they were nearly to Daniel's apartment. She parked in his space since Daniel's car was still at the base and they walked to the coffee shop. She'd been right, it was already getting warm.

They bought over-priced coffees and pastries and went back to Daniel's apartment by unspoken agreement. Neither of them wanted to have this conversation in public and try to talk vaguely around the subject.

Daniel's apartment smelled stale and unused and faintly like spoiled food. Sam wondered how long it had been since he'd been in it. There was a stack of junk mail and magazines on the coffee table, a basket of unfolded clothes in the middle of the living room floor. Daniel picked up the mail and put it on the kitchen table and kicked the basket out of the way. He opened a window to clear the smell and a warm breeze came in from outside.

"Sorry. I haven't been back here since, uh, well, since before we left for... At the time I didn't think I'd be having company." He coughed and sat down in an overstuffed arm chair.

"It's okay," Sam said, sitting down on the couch.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, but it was a silence less awkward than in the car. Sam wrapped her hands around the cardboard cup that proudly declared itself recycled and watched the steam rise off of her chai tea latte. She glanced at Daniel, his face pensive, and felt the anger that she'd been holding onto start to unravel.

"Daniel, what happened on that planet--"

"Oh, Sam, please don't tell me it wasn't my fault."

Sam leaned back against the couch. The breeze coming in from outside had cleared the stale air. Sam closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She opened her eyes. "You made a bad call," she said and Daniel's eyebrows went up.

"Okay, you made several bad calls," Sam admitted.

"Yes, I've been over every one of them with Jack," Daniel said. "We don't agree on what all of them were, of course," he added ruefully.

"No," Sam said. "I wouldn't expect you that you would." She thought she knew where they differed. Daniel would likely stand by his decision to stop Shyla from jumping despite everything.

Daniel leaned forward in his chair. "Sam. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what I said."

Said. Not what I did. What I said. Well. Daniel was nothing if not perceptive.

"Daniel..."

He help up a finger. It was a gesture that he used on Jack a lot. Sam found it a lot more annoying aimed at her.

"Sam, what happened on the planet...yes, I was an idiot and, yes, I made a lot of bad calls. But at the time...at the time, I honestly believed I was doing the right thing. For all of us. I thought I was helping everyone. I...it made sense in my head even if it didn't really make sense."

Sam grinned.

"But afterward. What I said to you later. In the lab. That...I knew I was hurting you and I just didn't care. I wanted to hurt you. And for that I am sorry."

"Hey, sticks and stones, right?" Sam said brightly.

"The refrain of bullied school children everywhere," Daniel said. "I think we both know that's a load of crap." He paused, glanced at her, and, seeing that she didn't have anything to add, continued, "Sam, I've spent large portions of my life devoted to the story of words. They're powerful things. If they weren't, the Goa'uld wouldn't bother to outlaw writing. Dictatorial governments wouldn't have control of the press as one of their first priorities." He shook his head, a little, stopping himself from going into a full lecture.

"Words hurt," Sam agreed.

Daniel didn't look at her. "Bones heal," he said quietly.

Oh, Daniel. He didn't honestly think...

"Daniel. We're okay. But I guess I haven't been acting like it, have I?" she said. They were both quiet for a long moment. Daniel watched her, eyes flicking over her face like he was reading a book. "I forgive you," Sam said, because she thought maybe Daniel needed to hear the words.

"But..." Daniel prompted.

The man was a little too perceptive sometimes.

"Bad timing," Sam said.

Daniel waited. Sam picked at her muffin. She could hear rush hour traffic drift in through the open window. She could barely even imagine what it would be like to keep a normal schedule anymore.

"There was a guy," Sam said finally. "He left me a voice mail breaking it off. I got it right after we got back from the planet."

"I had no idea..."

"Three dates. Hardly a relationship," Sam said. "I guess what you said about...love. It hit a little close to home. I don't have the best track record when it comes to romance."

"Yeah," Daniel said. "Me either."

"Daniel, you have..."

"Sha're. I know. But Sam...I had to go to another planet to find a woman who would have me." He smiled, sadly. "And even at that...if Sha're weren't the most stubborn, persistent..." He sighed. "She broke down my defenses and she made me a better person and I still failed..." He grimaced. Sam wondered how much guilt he was carrying about Shyla, about what he'd said about Sha're. She knew better than to broach the subject.

"I didn't mean what I said, Sam. I don't think that about you."

Sam smiled. She supposed she'd needed to hear the words too. "Okay," she said.

"We're okay?"

Sam nodded. On impulse, she leaned forward and took Daniel's hand, squeezed once.

They gossiped over the rest of breakfast, Sam filling Daniel in on what he'd missed during his...recuperation. Afterward, Sam helped him clean up, throwing out spoiled food and junk mail. This sort of thing had always been easy with Daniel. She couldn't imaging helping Colonel O'Neill fold his sheets, but with Daniel it felt normal, even if he was a typical guy and looked at her like she was crazy for suggesting he fold his underwear before balling it up and shoving it into his dresser.

Janet called to check in before they were done. Everyone was still a little twitchy about Daniel. She supposed no one liked having him away from the infirmary for very long, just in case. But something in Daniel's expression told her he wasn't ready to look at concrete walls and guards just yet. Sam made a vague excuse and told her they'd be back around noon.

They sat on the couch and watched daytime television, but Daniel's expression was thoughtful and far away.

"Some things need words and some things need silence. The trick is knowing which is which," Daniel had said once. It was a passing thing, one of those profound statements that people make sometimes without even realizing. He was talking about diplomacy and cross-cultural communication, trying to explain how he'd spent a day sitting on the cold ground, _not_ talking to the leader of a group of Nomads, and walked away with a standing invitation to visit her people and a bolt of very expensive cloth that had a higher tensile strength than steel and was waterproof to boot, but Sam had learned that it could apply to a lot of things.

Sam thought the words had done their work, there was nothing else to say, not now. They sat on the couch and watched a Matlock rerun in comfortable silence.

end


End file.
